Desperation Reef

Casey pulls out her chair and Bette stands. Jen is silently disgusted by this, but she can’t take her eyes off of tall, beautiful Bette Wu, suddenly holding sway over her son, her world.

Casey, standing beside Bette with a small smile, suddenly sits.

Bette nods to him, then considers the room with a serious face, drawing them in, before focusing for a brief moment on the eight people at her table. Clears her throat and swings a strand of shining black hair back under her beanie.

Silence settles over the crowd, broken only by kitchen clamor and the sound of the waitstaff serving and clearing.

“Thank you for allowing me to be here. I love surfing even though I’m no good at it. I admire so many of you big-wave riders. You are brave and beautiful.”

This gets them going again, hooting and cheering, glasses raised.

“I was born in the United States. But because my family is of Chinese ancestors, there have been hateful, racist suggestions made in news and social media, mostly from the extreme right. My socials are filled with hate. We are taunted on the streets where we live. Our old people sometimes get hit and kicked. We get blamed for disease, communism, and a bad economy. For yellow skin. These are some of the prejudices that led to rape, beatings, and murders of my ancestors, as far back as the California Gold Rush. I, my father, and some of our associates have been interviewed by the Laguna Beach Police, the LA Sheriff’s Department, and the FBI. They found no evidence that anyone in my family or in King Jim Seafood is even related to the fire that destroyed Jen Stonebreaker’s beautiful restaurant. On the opposite, arrests have been made and charges filed against two individuals tied to the Monterey 9 criminal organization in LA. So, I thank you from my heart for letting me sit with you tonight, and see the wonderful contest. Thank you, thank you. Casey?”

Jen watches her son stand. He’s taller than Bette Wu but not by much. His face is flushed.

Bette’s serious words have hushed the crowd, and the waitstaff have paused to listen. Jen stews in the relative silence. The only sounds in Barbara’s Fish Trap are the distant banging in the kitchen, the slow cars out on Capistrano Road, and the raindrops hitting the windows.

Jen dreads what her son is about to say, whatever it might be. Wishes she could cradle him in her arms and carry him away. Maybe elbow Bette in the face on their way out. By the way he looks at Bette, Jen sees that she has overrun him, body and heart.

Casey: “So now you know that Bette’s family didn’t burn the Barrel. I want you all to know that. Welcome her to the Monsters, maybe be, like, cool to her. She’s really great.”

Casey drops back into his chair like a kid who’s being stared at. Looks at Jen with the same dashed expression he got when he was six and asked her if she would marry him someday and she told him no, it doesn’t work that way, son.

Then comes a murmur, followed by louder “alrights” and “yeah, mans” and a strong, clear “Go, Bette!”

Who is still standing. “I don’t want to go,” she says. “I want to stay in this world with all of you.”

She holds up a white letter-sized envelope she’s taken from her purse.

“I’m almost done, really! But this is a check from my family’s bank in Hong Kong, made out to Jen Stonebreaker in the amount of one-hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It is for restoring of the Barrel. This is a gift from the Wu family to the Stonebreakers. No conditions or obligations are attached, but we would like a small plaque somewhere in the new restaurant. Maybe near that bronze of John Stonebreaker in the lobby, acknowledging this gift from us.”

As the cheers rise and the applause gets louder, Bette leans across the table and hands the check to Jen.

Who is too angry to even look at the envelope. How else could Bette know that $175,000 is her shortfall? Another facet of Casey’s betrayal?

Reset, she thinks. One of Dr. Penelope Parker’s favorite words.

Reset.

Say the Wus did not, in fact, set fire to my restaurant, and Bette never intended to hurt Mae.

Say the threats were ugly and idle, but empty. They were fairly vague.

But she remembers Jimmy Wu’s happily ominous words that day on Empress II, when he thought it was so funny that she mentioned fire and her restaurant together.

The Barrel is my life. My family. I’d set it on fire before I’d sell it to you.

Oh, funny, funny, I say Barrel and you say fire!

So who really brought up the idea of setting fire to her restaurant in the first place, Jen thinks now — she or Jimmy? Could she have misread his words, his cultural compass, or his quirky reactions?

But it’s damned hard for her to accept all that — daughter of a cop, by nature suspicious and doubting. Her father who, come to think of it, judged Jimmy Wu a “creep” based on info from his LBPD friends.